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Poem “Worldly Wisdom” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poems of reflection

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American LiteratureAmerican PoetryElla Wheeler WilcoxPoems by Ella Wheeler WilcoxPoems of reflection
< < < Transplanted
New Orleans, 1885 > > >


Worldly Wisdom


If it were in my dead Past’s power
  To let my Present bask
In some lost pleasure for an hour,
  This is the boon I’d ask:

Re-pedestal from out the dust
  Where long ago ’twas hurled,
My beautiful incautious trust
  In this unworthy world.

The symbol of my own soul’s truth–
  I saw it go with tears–
The sweet unwisdom of my youth–
  That vanished with the years.

Since knowledge brings us only grief,
  I would return again
To happy ignorance and belief
  In motives and in men.

For worldly wisdom learned in pain
  Is in itself a cross,
Significant mayhap of gain,
  Yet sign of saddest loss.


< < < Transplanted
New Orleans, 1885 > > >

American LiteratureAmerican PoetryElla Wheeler WilcoxPoems by Ella Wheeler WilcoxPoems of reflection


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